I’ve been having lots of Thoughts lately. Big Thoughts about life, work, vocation, etc. And while I’m not making any big moves right now, I am thinking about next steps. I realized the other day that even if I did make big moves right now, I’m still carrying a lot of stuff from the past that I don’t want to keep carrying, regardless of the destination. (Sorry if this is cryptic. I’m not secretly sitting on a huge job offer or book deal or anything. Just lots of Thinky Thoughts that I’m not ready to share on the internet.)

Last Friday, in an effort to hone in on these feelings, I hosted a little gathering of friends at my apartment, where we ate charcuterie and wasabi rice snacks and drank Laura Palmers (and, later, wine) and tore through the magazines we’d brought, turning the clippings into vision boards for ourselves. I read some tarot cards. A great time was had by all.

In addition to this kind of slightly woo-woo brainstorming about the future, I decided to make concrete steps to deal with some of the backlog/buildup that I definitely don’t want to be carrying forward. So I made myself a little challenge!

Don’t worry- I definitely haven’t decided to do 75 Hard or anything deranged like that. My criteria for “challenge” is something I can do, every day, with the tools I already have. Challenges like 75 Hard, where you have to follow a diet, work out twice (twice!!! a day!!!!) and read ten pages of nonfiction only are great for some people–I don’t know who, but surely there are some people who benefit from this kind of structure. So: doable daily, with the tools I already have. Simple!

I call it 1-1-1. There are two categories in which I can earn points, and I think of one as baseline habits or actions I want to make sure I’m prioritizing, and the other are more … propulsive. IDK if that makes sense. OK. Category one:

1 – creative session, up to one hour

1 – movement session, up to one hour

1 – social media or blog post

Nice and vague, right? For creative, that’s ideally writing, but any of the crafts I’ve picked up or want to pick up would also count for this. For movement, I mean any movement. Walking, stretching, yoga, pilates, a Peloton ride, weight lifting. If I spend twenty minutes rolling out my muscles, that counts. The last one, on social media? Easy: I’ve got a book to promote, and a weird block about talking about it, so if the idea is to make as many posts as possible it doesn’t matter that each one isn’t perfect.

I’m not trying to punish myself here. If I don’t get any points, that’s fine! The idea is to have something quantifiable, to encourage me to do the good things I’m already doing more often.

For the “bonus” or propulsive category, these are actions I think of as “next level” stuff. And it might sound really stupid that I’m 37 and haven’t figured some of this shit out, but give me a break. It’s been a weird few years. Decades. Whatever.

So:

1 – self-care

1 – conquering avoidance mountain

1 – screen-free bedtime/wakeup

Again, fairly straightforward. Self care can include things like drining enough water, doing a face mask, or using one of my weird face gadgets. Conquering avoidance mountain can be anything from responding to an email I’ve been putting off or cleaning up a folder on my hard drive. And screen-free bedtime/wakeup speaks for itself.

I don’t expect huge outcomes from this. I don’t expect to roll in to August a completely new person, with perfect skin and abs and a pristine inbox. I want to get caught up; I want to get better sleep; I want to move more in ways that make me happy.

So… what am I going to do with all the points? I have some rewards planned out depending on how many points I get, and I’ll share those later. For now, I’m just going to focus on consistency and we’ll see where it takes me.

I’ll keep you updated!